Chapter 177
Chapter 177
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 177
Chapter Title: Mirror Flower, Water Moon - Evolution of a Trait (4)
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***
*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Countless bursts of wind erupted, their aftershocks raging violently.
Despite swinging and slashing her sword relentlessly, unleashing gust after gust, all Glacia could see was the faint afterimage of a spiraling current.
It was all too strange.
She could see Han Cheon-seong moving.
But her wind couldn't reach him.
The distance between them was now close enough that her spear could barely touch him if she thrust it out.
...A sense of crisis dominated her entire being, yet she couldn't comprehend it.
‘Why?’
Why wasn’t her wind reaching Han Cheon-seong? She truly couldn't understand it at all.
But she had no time to ponder it properly. If she slowed her frenzied assault for even a moment, she felt she would have to admit defeat.
She hated that idea.
She truly did not want to lose to Han Cheon-seong. It was an incomprehensible defeat to accept, and a fiery tenacity kept welling up in her heart.
More than anything, the short phrase Han Cheon-seong had spoken to her a moment ago wouldn't leave her mind.
—Glacia. Is this all you've got?
Han Cheon-seong, who had been avoiding or neutralizing her attacks without being able to get close, had suddenly adopted a composure he couldn't possibly afford.
At first, it just seemed strange.
He had clearly been struggling, so why was he suddenly acting so composed? But when he completely nullified the storm-like winds she unleashed right after, her will had been greatly broken, if only for a moment.
‘Don't tell me... he was holding back on me?’
Han Cheon-seong, who had been pushed back significantly by her wind until now, had suddenly shown the bizarre ability to hold his ground.
It felt like a sign that he had been going easy on her.
The flow of the duel after that was completely different from before.
*Swish!*
She once again shot a blast of wind toward Han Cheon-seong as he moved across the ground, but it only scattered the afterimage of the blue current, never touching his body.
...Now that he was precariously within her spear's range, her heart grew anxious.
A sense of crisis that she could be finished at any moment. At the same time, she even felt a sense of self-reproach for not being able to push him back.
*Grit.*
She tasted the coppery tang of blood from her torn lip.
She could feel her strength gradually depleting, but she couldn't give up like this.
Losing to someone else, even losing to Leonhardt, was something she could accept. Even if the defeat was frustrating at that moment, it wasn't a loss she couldn't come to terms with.
Because she could admit she was weaker, that he was more skilled, and that was why she lost.
But losing to Han Cheon-seong was something she despised.
Even knowing he was skilled enough to be compared to Leonhardt, she couldn't easily accept her own defeat.
So, while blaming herself, she somehow managed to manifest her power even more fiercely.
‘I will never... let it end like this.’
Even if she were to lose, she couldn't lose this way.
Because if she did….
It felt as if Han Cheon-seong would be disappointed in her. It felt like she would be showing him that this was all she was capable of, and that, she could not accept.
“...!”
In that instant, it felt as if her mind had belatedly awakened.
Even now, she could see the trail of Han Cheon-seong’s movements, the blue, spiraling current that left afterimages in her vision, and she had been trying to push him away.
But there had been no need for that in the first place.
*Swoosh.*
Quickly retracting the sword she had been slashing with, she stopped swinging it as if chasing Han Cheon-seong. Instead, she manifested the wind she had been projecting even more strongly, wrapping it around her own body.
Just as Han Cheon-seong had imbued the shaft of his spear with a spiraling current and then wrapped it around his body to dramatically increase his speed.
She could handle her wind in a different way.
‘I will embrace myself with the wind.’
And reject everything else.
If she couldn't push Han Cheon-seong away, she just needed to push away everything around her.
*Shuuuk!*
She saw a spearhead rushing toward her like a flash of light.
The moment she stopped her assault, his spearhead moved to end the match in a single blow. As she took in the sight, she wished for it more intensely than ever before.
For a power stronger than anything else, a power that would repel everything that existed around her now.
*––––––––––––––––––!!!*
The moment she felt a silent wind begin to stir, a monumental change occurred.
*Ssssssk!!*
The spearhead that had rushed toward her began to tremble violently just before it reached her, then was pushed back.
As the spearhead was repelled faster than it had approached.
“...!”
She could also see Han Cheon-seong's eyes widen in shock.
The blue, spiraling current enveloped his entire body, making his form appear indistinct within it. Seeing this, I pushed forward once more.
*KABOOM!*
Gripping her sword with both hands, she slammed it hard into the ground, completely unleashing her power.
*Shwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah––––––––––!!*
Immediately after, a massive storm erupted, completely repelling everything in the vicinity and pushing it away in an instant.
A thick cloud of dust rose, but even that was visibly being blown away by the storm-like wind.
It was a situation where, quite literally, everything except her was being pushed back by the storm.
Yet her eyes followed Han Cheon-seong, who was now floating high in the air. Seeing him, the corners of her mouth curled up as a strange confidence began to bubble up inside her.
Her heart had, at some point, become serenely calm.
The conviction that she had obtained a much stronger power, and the thrill that came with it, seemed to envelop her entire body.
She slowly lifted the sword she had slammed into the ground and aimed it at Han Cheon-seong, who was floating high in the air.
'The finale.'
She had to end this duel.
Before Han Cheon-seong, who was still maintaining his spiraling current, could move again—!
***
*Shwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah––––––––––!!*
Amidst a feeling of astonishment, as if I were witnessing the birth of a storm for the very first time.
Before I even realized it, I was floating high in the air.
As I felt like I was flying through the sky, a laugh escaped my lips without my noticing.
‘She’s reached it.’
My outstretched spear was pushed back, and my entire body floated in the air as if suspended by a massive storm that prevented me from even touching the ground.
But that didn't matter.
I had clearly seen with my own two eyes the burst of blue light that had erupted like a flash.
The moment Glacia looked at me from within that blue light with an even stronger gaze seemed to be imprinted upon my eyes.
And the sight of Glacia, shrouded in a great light of blessing as she elegantly brandished her sword... was so beautiful that a pure sense of admiration escaped me.
As I sensed that she had finally reached Trait Level 4, not a single trace of doubt or the previous fervor remained in my heart.
“……”
As I floated blankly in the air, a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction at having accomplished my task filled my heart.
And yet, I felt a peculiar sensation.
For some reason, the blue, spiraling current surrounding me had not yet disappeared.
It felt as though it was guiding me, allowing me to right myself in mid-air, and I instinctively managed to do so.
As I slowly regained my balance in the air, I could see it.
The form of Glacia raising her sword amidst the fiercely raging storm as the light of blessing faded. When the tip of her sword turned toward me again, I accepted it with a strange sense of calm.
'I've lost.'
*Paaaang––––––––––!!*
The moment I thought it, I saw a much more powerful gust of wind shoot from the tip of Glacia's sword, accompanied by a shockwave that seemed to tear through the atmosphere.
As I faced the wind that tore violently through the air as it rushed toward me.
—!
I felt a bizarre sensation, as if time had drastically slowed down. I, too, extended the hand holding my spear.
I had achieved the best possible outcome in this duel, and now that Glacia was about to end it, I couldn't just let it happen anticlimactically.
It needed a fitting conclusion.
The best I could achieve by sacrificing myself in this duel. Therefore, even at the end of the duel, I had to show the best I was capable of.
And at that moment.
I could feel an anomaly.
—!
A sudden shimmer of blue light erupted.
Starting from the hand that held the spear and spreading up my arm, a strange blue radiance grew immense, instantly enveloping my entire body.
And I understood in an instant what this shimmer was.
“……”
My mouth hung open blankly, but the astonishing experience I was undergoing in that instant was incomparable to anything before.
Vast principles and concepts were injected into my mind, elevating my own understanding to a new dimension and leading me to a new enlightenment. In addition, countless experiences that were not my own were inscribed upon my body, and the hand that extended the spear naturally changed.
The wind that had been tearing through the air was approaching rapidly, even in this seemingly stopped time.
But I did not try to face the wind with the tip of my spear.
—!
Time, which had been flowing slowly, seemed to instantly accelerate as I regained a sense of reality.
*Srrrrrrrrrk!*
Instead of the spearhead, I intensely rotated the shaft of the spear to block the front, erasing the storm-like wind that had rushed toward me.
As I registered the wind being rapidly neutralized, my heart felt light.
*Tap.*
As I landed lightly on the ground, my body felt like it could fly.
The blue, spiraling current continued to envelop my entire body. But now, it felt a little different. A more vivid spiraling current was wrapped around me.
The wind I had blocked had scattered around me like a gentle breeze.
In my slightly dazed state, it was hard to believe.
'This is... Trait Level 5.'
As I came to hold the spear shaft, which I usually held with both hands, in my right hand, my left hand was naturally freed.
It was another way of using the spear, an experience etched into my very body.
As I slowly raised my head to meet Glacia's gaze, I saw that she, too, was staring at me blankly.
It was strangely amusing.
It wasn't as if we resembled each other, yet both she and I were acting in a similar way.
"Glacia. This isn't the end, is it?"
As I spoke lightly, the fighting spirit that had subsided began to swirl around my entire body.
This new power. The intense desire to test it was almost too much to control.
*Smirk.*
At the sight of Glacia, who said nothing but simply curled the corners of her mouth into a smile, I kicked off the ground without hesitation.
This duel was not over yet.